How to Make Cognitive Illusions Disappear: Beyond “Heuristics and Biases”

Abstract

Most so-called “errors” in probabilistic reasoning are in fact not violations of probability theory. Examples of such “errors” include overconfidence bias, conjunction fallacy, and base-rate neglect. Researchers have relied on a very narrow normative view, and have ignored conceptual distinctions—e.g. single case versus relative frequency—fundamental to probability theory. By recognizing and using these distinctions, however, we can make apparently stable “errors” disappear, reappear, or even invert. I suggest what a reformed understanding of judgments under uncertainty might look like.